


Hidden Drawers

by iamjustme



Series: Inside Their Heads [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Self-Hatred, The Hale Fire, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2567168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamjustme/pseuds/iamjustme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all Derek's fault, isn't it? He just tries so hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hidden Drawers

Laura couldn't know.  
He could never tell her. 

He'd bury it deep inside until he couldn’t taste Kate’s chapstick on his lips. 

Derek should have known better. He should’ve smelled a lie, smelled the revulsion or pity or hate on her. How could he not have known? It was so obvious looking back. Her curiosity about his family, her easy acceptance of his wolf. Her need to dominate him, to make him work for it, to make him submit.

Chapstick tastes like bile now.

Laura spent most of her time as a wolf during the days just after the fire. Derek panicked every time her eyes flared red. The instinct to obey her stuck in his teeth. Two years ago, Laura had been failing her creative writing class. What did she know about running a pack? What did she know about taking care of them? 

She wasn’t his mother.

Their father had thought Laura was going to be the next alpha; she had the same presence Talia did. Derek was to be her soldier, her right hand man helping her negotiate with other packs and wrangling any newly made wolves. Now, he was just her beta. They had nothing else. No pack, no territory of their own—they couldn’t stay; they couldn’t defend it. 

Moving to New York was a blessing in disguise. Getting away from Beacon Hills and the hollow shell of their uncle allowed them to start putting the tragedy behind them as much as possible. 

They formed a loose alliance with the five local packs, attended school, and got around CPS by the skin of their teeth. Laura couldn’t hold down a real job. Derek clung too much and for the first six months needed her close. They made it work. 

Laura visited Peter on holidays. Sometimes she made Derek go with her. Derek wished she had never gone back to celebrate Peter’s birthday with him. She might still be alive.

One of the New York City’s alphas—Monica Brant—took them in when they first arrived. She helped them enroll in schools, got Laura a part-time job at a bakery one of her beta’s owned. The beta didn’t mind Derek hanging around doing his homework and keeping an eye on Laura. 

Derek doesn't dream. Derek nightmares. Monica helped them find their own place after he woke her up with his screaming a couple of times that first week when Laura couldn’t calm him quickly enough.

His mind is relentless in its drive to process the pain and anger. Even now, years later, nightmares rip him apart and leave him shaking and covered in sweat at least once a week. 

He can feel them coming before they start. He feels the basketball thump rhythmically against the floor. Hears cello music playing distantly. It runs up and down his spine as familiar hands play scales. Derek stands at the end of the long hall, shoulders hunched in on himself, and watches his 15-year-old self walk toward the orchestra room. 

He doesn't scream at him anymore. Doesn't chase. Doesn't cry. He knows how this ends. Blood and tears on his face, his hands. His mother's firm words of tough love, her soft hands caressing his back as he falls apart curled up in her lap. 

Inside the orchestra room, young Derek slides into the seat next to Paige and watches her play. She finishes her piece and he touches the side of her face, unable to resist gently scent marking her. They belong to each other, he's sure of it. He pulls her into a hug and feels a warm wetness against his chest. 

Derek can’t watch, so he looks at his feet as the wooden floor of the classroom shifts into the rough dirt of the Nemeton’s forest floor.

He can smell the warm, black blood seeping out of her nose, mouth, and her bite wound. Derek can feel his younger self panic. Paige is gone, but he can still feel her lips pressing sweetly against his own. 

Derek had never heard of a healthy teenager rejecting the bite before. It just didn't happen. Bite rejections are rare and a good alpha always knows who's most likely to take well, or not at all, to the bite. Ennis should have known. Hell, Peter should have known. Peter has a thing for esoteric knowledge and power. There is an infinitesimal percentage who reject despite not having any of the standard risks, but he never expected it. 

Kate found him grieving, an easy mark ripe for the picking.

She was electric, intoxicating, and fun. She saw him suffering, depressed and apathetic, and she pulled him out of his head—only to throw him into a hell he couldn’t have imagined. His mother had been wary of his abrupt shift toward happiness, but wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It must have been nice to see Derek eating of his own volition again.

She should have pushed. Talia might be alive if she had been a little bit more cautious about whose scent her baby came home covered in. Derek didn’t blame her, never could. He knew their deaths all lay firmly at his own feet.

Kate had been the substitute teacher for his PE class while their regular instructor was on maternity leave. She asked him to stay after one day and told him that he should make sure to keep his speed just a little bit more in check. He was just slightly too fast, slightly too inhuman. He nodded, terrified, but she just smiled flirtatiously and gripped his bicep. “You don’t want to endanger your pack.”

The first time they kissed, Kate had been sitting on the old stage where Laura had once played Miranda from the Tempest before the new auditorium had been built. Now, the gym's stage was a makeshift weight room. 

She had been sitting on the edge with her feet dangling over and her knees spread apart. Derek stood between her thighs, nervous, excited, and unsure. Kate had leaned forward, tipped his head back, and made his knees weak. It had never been like that with Paige.

He can still taste the ash in his mouth. He wakes with it on his tongue, in his nose. Her scent dancing just out of reach. 

When Derek woke Monica screaming, he couldn’t even tell her or Laura what happened, what he was dreaming about. He felt Paige’s blood drip through his fingers, black and sticky. The ruins of his home smoldering on the ground. The screams of his family echoing in his ears. Laura had been picking him up from practice. If she hadn’t been, he’d have been the only survivor. He wondered if that had been Kate’s goal.

Laura had hauled what remained of Peter out of the house. Derek froze and watched their family burn. He never understood how Cora got out—she wasn’t sharing. He gave up everything for Cora when she came back. He tried to make room for her in his life and welcomed her home, but still she left. He didn’t blame her. He deserved it.

He and Laura did what they could for Peter. Clearly, it hadn’t been enough. Maybe they shouldn’t have left him alone in Beacon Hills. Maybe they should have left him to die. Maybe they all should have died. 

Peter’s quest for revenge turned Derek omega and brought Scott into a world he never believed existed. It gave Derek more responsibility than he ever wanted and left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was never supposed to be alpha. He was never supposed to lead a pack. He was a soldier, through and through. 

Peter’s vengeance stole everything from Derek, but Derek couldn’t bring himself to kill him again. It was his fault Peter sought vengeance in the first place. Peter was barely a wolf anymore. He had never been a good man. Peter was too selfish for that, but he had always been in control. Derek didn’t think Peter knew what control even was anymore. He was purely human under his skin. He stifled his wolf and only allowed it out to hunt. He twisted its instincts and made it dark and wrong. 

_You’re a hunter; you don’t have to be a killer._

Derek tried to be better, stronger, faster. He always tried. 

It just wasn’t ever enough.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://talesfromthechickpea.tumblr.com)!


End file.
